Ask HN: How are you attributing your AI usage when developing software?

[hartleybrody]

I have started a convention of prefixing a commit message with "prompt:" for commits that are entirely AI generated (which I have read through and approved) and then I make my own manual changes and iterations in subsequent commits.

I feel like this is a reasonable attempt at disclosure, but it also seems like it's lacking. I usually include a summary, not the entire prompt (how would I included tool use?) I don't say which models or "agent" was used (cursor sidebar chat vs calude code, etc). Not sure if this matters though?

How have you been managing this in your own workflows?

[not_your_vase]

I don't think it's any different than attributing the compiler or the text editor. I don't do either of those, and I also don't attribute LLM generated code.

[throwaway019254]

Completely agree.

That’s why I always prefix my commit messages with “IntelliJ:”.

[hartleybrody]

Is IntelliJ generating source code that gets committed to your codebase?

Seems completely different. See also, this discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44976568

[kamphey]

I don't think it matters much. Sometimes I do consulting where I'm coding at the same time as the client is there with me. There's lots of little questions and tons of testing involved as I do coding in Google Apps Script in Google Sheets. And I'll quickly say "oh I think ChatGPT can figure this out faster than me" and just prompt it at the same time. Then copy paste and edit and figure out if it's right code for that part.

Not only do they not care, they think it's pretty cool that I can essentially save them an hour here or there.

[mikewarot]

At the top of my README.md

IMPORTANT: This is almost entirely written by ChatGPT 5, not me

[ailabs_hq]

Do we need to unless you want to indemnify yourself